Wild Billionaire Romance - Chapter 57: Chapter 57

MARAT
I stopped texting Destiny after day five with no replies from her. Something had to be wrong with her phone, but I wouldn’t bother worrying about it until I saw her in person. I could figure it out and change the data plan or get her a better upgrade then.
Goddamn, I missed her so much.
The softness of her. The temptation of having her near. Her bright sunshine flavor. Her warm body and big heart. My sweet Dumplin’ had burrowed in deep. She’d slipped past my defenses and made a permanent home inside my very bones.
Destiny was a piece of me and being separated like this was leaching the life from my veins.
It was fucking killing me. It took another week in that godforsaken place to put all the pieces together.
I’d tried calling her, but the SAT phone was fucked up. The few messages I got to Adrik, he hadn’t been able to return either.
Fucking mining towns. I worked tirelessly to close this thing. Hunting down leads and tracking down the fucking people responsible for the so-called accident. To the rest of the world, that was what had happened. A tragedy.
But it was sabotage. A deliberate attack to try to rattle Volkov Industries. Only we didn’t get rattled. We got revenge.
The thing about being the face of a company I never appreciated was that I was an unknown quantity. A wild card. Our enemies underestimated me, and that alone gave me an advantage.
Whispers of the Devil Wolf made their way around the mining camp, and further still into every hellhole town nearby. Blood, sweat, and tears, not mine, were spilled to find the right information.
So, when I tracked down the perpetrator to a goon who once worked for an old syndicate long since dismantled, I was shocked. I didn’t think the greasy little fuck had it in him. But apparently favors only got you so far.
Ferragamo didn’t like being booted out of Sin City, and to exact his revenge he’d called in every marker, every favor he was owed. But no one wanted to go against the Dark Wolf face to face, so this last part, the actual wrecking of one of our mines, the soon to be dead man had to oversee himself.
“You can’t be the Devil Wolf?” he’d asked when I first stepped through the door.
“Can’t I?”
“You think you’re so fucking smart,” he snarled, which was pretty impressive considering the broken jaw I gave him two seconds after I’d entered the filthy room he’d been hiding in.
“We found you pretty easily, Ferragamo. Your little accident did minimal damage, and my plans are moving forward as before. So yeah, I would say I am pretty fucking smart,” I replied, rolling up my sleeves before I got to the fun stuff.
A dozen of my men surrounded us, and the four he’d had with him were bound and gagged, two already dead. No, I was not the Dark Wolf.
But I was still a Volkov. Rumors of my actions had flooded the streets of this shitty fucking place. They called me by a new name here.
They called me the Devil Wolf.
Like Lucifer himself, I rained destruction on any and all associated with the bombing. All roads had led to this man. He’d threatened mine. And I was going to show him why you didn’t dance with the Devil.
He owed a debt. He owed Volkov Industries, and me personally. And he would pay. Right fucking now.
However slowly was entirely up to him.
“Tough guy, coming into my club. Taking one of my girls. Telling me how to run my place. Then you fucking took it from me. Lux was my life! I poured my blood in that place.”
“It wasn’t worth your life,” I replied, shaking my head.
“You stupid fuck. You don’t even know,” he smirked, and my fist pummeled his jaw.
“Know what? I don’t know what?” I demanded, wrapping my hand around his sweaty fucking throat and squeezing.
The Devil Wolf’s rep revolved around the singular focus of my attacks. I wasn’t uncouth in my violence. I was controlled. Deliberate. He would talk. I knew he would. I would make sure of it.
Ten minutes later, I was not disappointed. My men surrounded us, ignoring the acrid stink of the filth in Ferragamo’s pants. Fucker had actually pissed himself.
“Last chance. What don’t I know?” I asked, tapping my fingers over the curved blade strapped to my thigh along with several others.
“This was j-just a distraction. Your whore wife is going to pay what you owe me.”
The world went dark at his words. I canted my head. Not sure I heard right.
“What did you say?” I whispered.
“I sent Royce after her. He’s been wanting her awhile now. And I just gave him the go ahead before you knocked down this door. It’s my final fuck you to you, you fucking Volko⁠—”
That was as far as he got before I shoved the nine-inch blade I’d been tapping with my fingertips right through the bastard’s neck. I’d had every intention of dragging out his torture. But when the greasy fucker mentioned my wife, he’d signed his own death certificate.
“Call the airfield. I want the plane ready ten minutes ago!” I barked the order, grabbing the satellite phone from Darius to call Adrik.
It took three tries. But I got through.
“What is it?” my brother's voice sounded even rougher over the weak connection.
“I need you to send men to protect Destiny. Don’t let her leave the penthouse⁠—”
“She isn’t there.”
“What?” I froze, one foot caught in the air, hovering over the disgusting floor of the hovel I’d found Ferragamo in.
I fucking hated this place. Hated this part of what was really a beautiful country. Not that any of that mattered. I was still trying to process what Adrik had just told me.
“What do you mean she isn’t there?” I asked.
“Marat, Destiny is gone. Now, tell me what’s happening.”
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t form a fucking word for all the thunder roaring in my ears.
She wasn’t there?
I couldn’t even understand what that meant. Of course she was there. I left her right there.
She was wearing a pair of cotton pajamas and was asleep, curled up on her side in our bed the last time I saw her.
My heart felt heavier than it had in, well, ever as I tried to make sense of Adrik’s words.
“Why does she need protection, Marat? Explain,” Adrik repeated, louder that time.
“She has to be there⁠—”
“Marat! What the fuck is happening?!”
“Ferragamo was behind the mine attack. He knew this was the mine I’d been testing my greener plans on, and he wanted me to fail as revenge for taking Lux from him. My wife is part of his revenge plan. He sent a guy named Royce after her. Fuck. You need to find Destiny!”
“Who is Royce?”
“One dead motherfucker,” I snapped.
“Understood. But who is he, Marat, so the men have someplace to look?”
“He was her old manager,” I growled, black rage blurring the edge of my vision.
“Okay, I am on it. I will send our best men to her location, but there are already some stationed where she is. Do not worry, brother,” Adrik said.
“Where is she?” I asked, seconds from falling apart.
“Safe. She is at Nonna’s,” he told me, and I exhaled.
Sofia’s grandmother had basically adopted everyone associated with her granddaughter. She was Nonna to us all. She would take care of my Dumplin’, I knew it. But I hated that she left me.
I felt betrayed. Lost. So fucking hurt.
“Did she say why she left?” I whispered, sounding so much like a little boy I wanted to puke.
Adrik let loose a stream of Russian, and because my mind was so fucked thinking about Dumplin’ leaving me, I needed him to repeat it twice before I understood.
The whole flight back to New York I was caught between grief and rage. One second away from putting my head through the fucking wall just so I’d be out of my misery.
She couldn’t leave me. I wouldn’t let her. I was going to get her back.
Volkov meant wolf, and I finally understood what that meant. I’d accepted my fate. Learned who I really was. More than a face. More than a bored billionaire playboy.
I was Marat Volkov.
I was the Devil Wolf.
And I was never letting my wife go.
All facts. All immoveable truths.
My wife. My Destiny. My sweet Dumplin’ was never going to be rid of me.
When I’d found her in that club, I had no idea what a prize my sweet, welcoming, beautiful little wife would be.
Her soft body tempted me like no other. Her beguiling blue eyes had me mesmerized. And her big heart brought me to my fucking knees.
I was nothing without her.
She was the only woman who’d ever cracked through the shield I’d built around my heart. Like a goddamn cannonball, she busted through my barriers, leaving me no choice but to let her in.
My lips quirked, and I wondered what she'd say if I told her that. If I confessed my suspicions about my feelings for her.
Maybe that was the problem all along. I’d been fighting the truth. Keeping it from the both of us.
Fuck. I’m such a shithead.
I’d never said I love you to another human being. Not once in my whole life. It didn’t look hard. I mean, I heard Sofia and Adrik say it all the time.
I should have told her. I should have let Destiny know what she meant to me. It was too fucking late now.
She’d left. She was gone. Destiny walked out on me, and I was all alone.
The realization hit me like a fucking hammer, and I'd never been more fucking miserable in my life.
I’m gonna get her back.
It was a promise I made as I boarded the jet. I was going to get her back.